Hello Stranger Read online

  Hello Stranger

  Jade West

  Hello Stranger copyright © 2020 Jade West

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  Cover design by Letitia Hasser of RBA Designs http://designs.romanticbookaffairs.com/

  Edited by John Hudspith www.johnhudspith.co.uk

  All enquiries to [email protected]

  First published 2020

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  For Jackie

  Acknowledgments

  About Jade

  Dedication

  For Jackie.

  Thank you for being such an amazing woman.

  You inspire me so much.

  1

  Logan

  There she was, sitting on the opposite side of the carriage – just a few seats ahead, staring out through the window at the world outside.

  The morning sun was harsh on her freckled cheeks. It suited her.

  Her hair was bound up high on her head, with messy little strands spiralling down. Mousy, with shimmers of gold. That suited her, too.

  There was a faded blue bag on the seat next to her, and a thick, worn paperback clasped tight under her arm.

  Nervous.

  The girl was nervous.

  The girl was pretty, too.

  Her fingers twisted in her lap, over and over. I could practically hear her shallow breaths, even over the whistle as the train pulled from the station.

  I knew the route by heart, since I’d been travelling it daily for nine years straight. I knew the line of oak trees past the Sunnydale viaduct. I knew the corner shop sign with its fresh newspaper headline every morning on Callow road. I knew the five red doorways along the station at Wenton – even the one with the streak of paint missing.

  I knew the people going about their lives like clockwork, just like me. The woman always tapping on her phone as she stepped onboard at Eastworth, ignorant of the passersby. The man with the messy blond beard, always cursing under his breath at Newstone as he tried to find his rail pass. The elderly woman at Churchley, with a permanent scowl and a garish floral scarf that she’d been wearing for years, always tied in the same lopsided bow under the chin.

  Not once did I ever say hello to a single person on that train journey. Not a smile, nor a wave, and never so much as a mutter of a good morning. I barely even gave them a glance.

  Yet still, I couldn’t stop looking at her. The girl on the train that morning.

  She’d dashed onboard at Eddington station, flushed even though she had a good clear two minutes before the train left. She dropped herself down into her seat with a huge gasp of breath, and I would’ve usually pulled my own paperback from my briefcase, but I didn’t.

  I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the girl as she grabbed the book from under her arm and flicked it open to halfway through. Her bookmark was faded pink. She pinched it between her knees and I caught a glimpse of the cover.

  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

  Interesting.

  It shocked me just how surprised I was to see such a classic novel in young hands. Small-minded and judgmental on my part. Shame on me and my forty-one years of trying to be a better man than that.

  I looked at her fresh, searching for signs of her literary tastefulness, but there was nothing that stood out. She was still the freckled girl in her early twenties, tapping her foot with nerves as the train chugged towards London.

  I wondered where she was going, heading into the city before eight a.m.

  I wondered what was making her so nervous.

  I wondered what her name was, and if I’d ever see her again, even though it shouldn’t matter in the slightest.

  London came closer.

  People came and went, station to station. The carriage filled up, people hovering for just a stop or two before heading off for their day. Still, she stayed in her seat, just like me.

  Until we came to Harrow.

  The train pulled into my usual stop, and the same crowd of people roused from the carriage. I picked up my briefcase and prepared myself to walk right on by her on my way out, just to get a closer look at her. But no. The girl was up faster than the rest of us. She flung her bag over her shoulder and shoved her novel in the side pocket, then was off like a whippet up the carriage aisle, without so much as a glance behind her.

  Hence, she didn’t notice that she left her battered pink bookmark on the floor behind her.

  It was only me, staring at the seat in her wake, that noticed the sad little memento.

  I picked it up.

  It was leather, old and worn. I turned it in my hands, and saw a name scrawled in gold.

  Chloe.

  Little Miss Tattered Paperback was clearly called Chloe.

  I followed her out onto the station, intending to hand it back, but she was already gone, up the main stairwell with enough of a bounce to clear them two at a time. The white rabbit on a run.

  Chloe.

  I slipped the bookmark into my inside pocket and watched her dash out of the platform exit on the other side of the track.

  Farewell, Chloe.

  I guessed I’d never see her again.

  2

  Chloe

  Crap, crap, crap.

  Harrow station came around so quick. Too quick. Too quick to get to my senses, even though they’d been on edge the whole journey.

  I was nervous. Just like always. It’s a bad combination – being nervous of everything and as disorganised as you can possibly be in your life. Go figure, but I was still battling it.

  Twenty-two years old and the solution was nowhere in sight, but I was trying.

  I’d looked up the route about fifty times online, but still my heart was thumping like I didn’t know
where the hell I was going. I dashed up over the platform bridge, then hurried along Harrow’s main high street, praying that the universe please be kind to me.

  I was desperate to make it to day one of my new job on time.

  It was a narrow window. The seven a.m. train was the earliest route I could take without any train changes, so I’d opted for it. Opted and prayed.

  Thankfully, Harrow District Hospital was a huge bulk of a building out of West Street. I could see it looming taller with every footstep. I repeated the department name over and over. A mantra along with my footsteps.

  Kingsley Ward, Kingsley Ward, Kingsley Ward.

  I’m Chloe Sutton for Kingsley Ward.

  The entrance was well posted. I veered off to the right of the main car park and headed right on in through the reception, and there was the sign. Phew. Easy to spot. Kingsley Ward, six doors along the corridor to the left.

  Thank you, universe. Thank you.

  With barely a minute left to go I headed across the corridor and stepped on in. The reception was smaller here. A smiling face greeted me as I raced on up and handed my job confirmation letter across the counter.

  “I’m here to see Wendy Briars, please. I start work today.”

  “Chloe Sutton?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” I said with a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She leaned forward over the counter to point me along my way. “Welcome to the team! Wendy’s expecting you.”

  The waiting room was already filling up, but I was well placed to see a woman stepping out from a door at the other side. She was tall. Red hair and a touch of freckles like mine, but she must’ve been at least twenty years older. I was just a gangly little girl up against her.

  I guess that’s when it truly hit me that this really was the turning point in my life – seeing my new boss, the head of nursing, there in person heading straight for me to welcome me to her world.

  Chloe Sutton, trainee nurse in patient rehabilitation.

  Chloe Sutton, full time employee of the National Health Service, with a vocation to help people who really need it.

  I’d always been like that. Mum and Dad said I’d been like it since I was barely walking, a little toddler saying owww and rubbing cream on people whenever I thought they’d hurt themselves. I’d wrap my dollies in bandages and cry whenever something bad happened to a character in a story, and I was always on a one-child mission to protect the schoolyard. Always with the desire to help people; to stop their hurting.

  And here I was, about to turn that desire into a reality. One drop in the ocean of medical care in Harrow Hospital, and my new work home. Hopefully forever.

  “I can’t wait to introduce you to the place,” Wendy said, once she’d introduced herself. “It’s a great team here. Such a lovely group of people. You’ll fit right in.”

  I hoped she was right.

  My shudder of nerves turned to a shiver of excitement as she began to show me around. Such a lovely group of people.

  Lovely patients in beds, waving and smiling. Lovely people needing help with their clothes, or their meals, or their pain management, or even just someone to talk to.

  Scared relatives looking for reassurance about the people they love. Happy grins when people reached a point they were well enough to go home.

  I felt like I was already making a real difference as I helped Catherine from the day care team with bed changes. I was beaming bright through a lunch break with Vickie, the girl from reception, dressed up fresh in my new blue work blouse.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she said over a hospital cafe snack, so I did.

  I gave her an overview of my textbook lovely life with a fresh new smile on my face. I told her about my awesome parents I visited every weekend, and our old family dog. I told her about the boyfriend I lived with over in Eddington. How I’d had a great time at Warwick university, studying psychology.

  How I was happy, happy, happy. Always so happy.

  She seemed pretty happy herself as she told me her life story right back. She had a young daughter, and a wedding ring displayed proudly on her finger. She started studying beauty, but got more interested in the anatomy part of the course and opted to rethink her talents.

  I guessed we’d be friends. Maybe really good ones.

  I figured that was a huge extra thumbs-up, given that most of my friends had stayed scattered all round the country, post their degree courses.

  Thank you, universe.

  The shift ploughed on, and the day was fast and busy enough to have me an exhausted muddle on the way home. But I was happy. I headed back through the streets to Harrow station with a whole load less race to my steps, but it didn’t matter. The train pulled into the platform just one little minute after I stepped onto it.

  Thank you, universe, all over again.

  The glow of satisfaction was burning bright as I headed up the carriage aisle. My very first real day in the world of healthcare, and I’d loved it every bit just as much as I hoped I would.

  No. Even better than I hoped I would.

  My feet were throbbing pretty bad when I dropped down into the nearest empty train seat. I leaned back against the headrest and enjoyed the whistle as we pulled away, looking forward to the comfort of the journey home when I dug into my bag for a fresh read of Gone with the Wind.

  My fingers scanned instinctively for my bookmark, just like they had done for years on end.

  Only it wasn’t there.

  It wasn’t in my book, and it wasn’t in my bag, and it wasn’t on the floor around my feet.

  It wasn’t in any of my pockets, and it wasn’t anywhere in the carriage aisle.

  Oh crap no.

  Please no.

  Please let me find it.

  But it seems the universe had done with its thumbs-ups for the day. My precious bookmark was nowhere to be seen.

  I couldn’t stop the tears pricking my eyes, but I kept on looking, kept on hoping.

  The glass is always half full in my world, even when there’s no water left to drink. After all, you still have the glass there ready for some more… Granny Weobley’s wise words.

  I was still fighting back the tears as Eddington Station pulled up.

  My bookmark was really gone.

  I remembered Granny Weobley’s face as she handed it over along with a library copy of Watership Down, just for me. I remembered how pretty it looked in lovely bright pink, with my name in such perfect gold under my fingers as I traced the letters around and around.

  A special gift for my special girl, from her very special grandma, the scrawl on the other side said.

  She was gone a week after, my very special grandma. Her heart gave up so suddenly that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.

  And now I’d lost the most precious gift she’d ever given me.

  I headed back home with sore steps from blistered feet. I climbed straight upstairs and let myself into our apartment, and there was Liam, back from his shift and already holed up on the sofa with some gun-ho video game online, just like he had been for months.

  “Hey,” I said, and he barely even raised me a wave.

  I kicked off my shoes and headed through to the kitchen. I made myself a cup of tea and waited for Liam to call me through to catch up on my day, but he didn’t bother. He kept on playing his game, oblivious, even when I sat myself down on the sofa right by his side.

  I waited for him to speak, imagining all the questions he’d soon be asking me.

  Hey, Chloe. How was your great new workday?

  Hey, Chloe. Was it every bit as exciting as you hoped?

  Did you meet some people? Learn some things? Do the things you’ve wanted to do for a lifetime?

  But nothing.

  Just gunshots and voices shouting through headphones, until finally I cleared my throat.

  “… Wendy Briars was amazing, and Kingsley Ward is the best, and I learned about crutches and the best way people can use their legs with them. Honestly, Lia
m, it was super cool. Better than I ever expected it to be, which is good, isn’t it?” I laughed to myself. “I mean for it to be better than I hoped it would be, it must be the best place in the whole damn world, mustn’t it?”

  Finally, with a curse as his game came to a catastrophic end, he turned to face me and pulled the headphones from his ears.

  Then he showed he was barely listening to a word I’d been saying.

  “Hey, babe. That’s cool. Just like you thought it would be, then?”

  His eyes weren’t warm, they were dull. Bored. More interested in getting back to his shitty games console than hearing about the new phase in the life he was supposedly committed to being a part of.

  We’d been together since high school, for eight years straight. I’d travelled back from university right the way through three years of weekends, just to make sure I could see him enough to keep us going.

  I’d moved straight into his apartment in Hedley Road when I was done, right next to his favourite local pub, with a tacky beer garden and huge sports screen for everyone to watch the football on. For all his mates to watch the football on every Sunday afternoon.